Two recent collaborative efforts among CIC colleges are proving their worth—saving dollars, creating efficiencies, and even generating income. But their implementation has not been a simple or straightforward process, said presenters at a Presidents Institute session.
    Gordon Haaland, president of Gettysburg College (PA), described an effort involving several institutions in Pennsylvania (Franklin & Marshall College, Dickinson College, and Bucknell University) that established a separate for-profit company to administer joint insurance programs for long-term disability and group life, long-distance telephone service, printing, human resource in-service training, and some computing functions. Haaland said that the schools also formed a self-insured workers’ compensation trust that purchased reinsurance and retained an experienced third-party claims administrator. “The trust is now experiencing substantial growth in the number of participating schools and there has been $275,000 in annual savings and more than $70,000 in annual income for the schools,” Haaland noted. In addition, he said, colleges are saving money by instituting group bidding of student health insurance, which reduces the cost of coverage per student. “These savings were used to retain the services of an insurance consultant who manages the programs for the schools,” he said, adding that more schools are expected to join the group this year, and that this initiative has produced more than $21,000 in annual income for the schools.
    Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (WAICU), reported on a statewide initiative, launched in 2001, to perform all
administrative support functions on a collaborative basis for the 20 members of WAICU. WAICU is creating group purchasing organizations, contracting with a single collection agency, and conducting a joint selection process for administrative software. While parts of the initiative succeeded in streamlining administrative support functions and saving money for the colleges, Wegenke said some projects were terminated after a thorough assessment. For example, the travel services program was terminated because of “too much flux in the industry…[and] internal resistance from the affected institutional departments,” he said.
    Haaland and Wegenke said they learned several important lessons in implementing these collaborative projects that could benefit others:

• Provide a clear sense of the reason for the project. Projects will be much easier to implement if the institutions have a clear sense of the reason for the project, and the impact that it will have on their college.
  
• Establish the priority of the project among participants. Individuals from the involved institutions must have a clear sense of the priority they must give to a consortial project.
  
• Communicate clearly and frequently. Collaborative projects need to be effectively communicated among the participating institutions so that the institutions are not working independently on the same projects that are being pursued on a
  consortial basis.
  
• Focus on a few projects at a time. It is better to give a lot of attention to the development of a few projects than it is to give a little attention to a large number of projects.
  

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Last updated: March 2003
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